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MacDevCenter.com: iPod as Digital Photographer’s Best Friend

By Dennis Lloyd ● Wednesday, December 3, 2003

“Based on what I’ve already discovered in Panther, I figured there had to be more possibilities than that. So I got my hands on the Belkin reader and started testing every scenario I could think of. Bottom line: my hunch was right. You can do a lot with this setup.

What’s interesting to me isn’t so much that you can upload pictures from a memory card to a portable storage device. As cool as this is, that functionality already exists with other tools. What makes the iPod scenario compelling is that it plugs into Panther, allowing you to leverage some of its powerful technologies. And that’s what I’m going to explore here today.”

Comments

1

Or… you could get a device with media card and FULL COLOR screen and editing and recording BUILT IN.

Rich media on an iPod?!? It’s like watching monkeys learn to type!

Posted by FullColor in Irvine, CA on December 3, 2003 at 12:54 PM (CST)

1

So the Ipod can be recognized as a pseudo-camera. Wow!

Posted by tetro in Irvine, CA on December 3, 2003 at 1:24 PM (CST)

1

I think this article would best be titled “iPod: The Casual Photographer’s Best Friend” or even better: “iPod: The Professional Photographers Biggest Letdown.”

I refrained from upgrading my 2nd gen iPod until it had the capacity to work as a digital wallet. After the Belkin device was released, I immediately purchased it with a 40GB iPod.

I returned the Belkin device in three days. For anyone who is serious about photography, the Belkin Media reader is a huge waste of money.

DSLRs and many consumer digital cams spit out photos over 6-8 MB in size, and most serious photographers choose to take pictures at such resolution. Who in their right mind would confine themselves, given these file sizes, to a 128MB card?

Transferring a 3/4 full 1GB card took me about an hour. Now, even if I could wait an hour in most cases, the problem is that the iPod’s battery (starting with a full charge) is, at the end of such a transfer, completely drained. So add a few more hours to charge the iPod up.

Belkin’s use of the term “firewire speed” in its advertising is utterly false at best, and criminally misleading at worst.

Another thing which makes the iPod/Belkin Media Reader useless to serious photographers: the inability to delete files on the iPod. What happens if you run out of space on your iPod in the field? You’re screwed!

I bought another device as a digital wallet, and quite frankly, even in its utmost simplicity, it’ll do the job a million times better than the iPod. The iPod’s great at what it does, and there were plenty of professional and serious amateur photographers hoping it would also be great at being a digital wallet. Belkin really messed up on this one.

I keep my ipod and use it as a digital music player. I’m glad the Belkin Reader works for family snapshots and stuff, but for me and most serious photographers (of which there are many), it’s a complete waste of money.

Posted by resonance in Irvine, CA on December 4, 2003 at 9:05 AM (CST)